Anyone able to satisfy my curiosity as to whether a) Controllers in the main typically hope that an event resulting in major disruption will not occur on their "patch" during their shift or b) Controllers in the main actually welcome the challenges which unforeseen disruption brings and almost long for something to happen during their hours of duty?
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Controllers and disruption
- Thread starter GordonT
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Sometimes a few minor issues just to pass an hour or so is nice but generally with major disruption I absolutely dread it. I typically hope for an easy day.
I've had days where I've left with thudding headaches, not been able to switch off or unwind at home and then had a terrible sleep and come back in the next day with the same headache and zero morale.
Some others I work with do absolutely thrive on disruption and can't sit still during downtime!
I've had days where I've left with thudding headaches, not been able to switch off or unwind at home and then had a terrible sleep and come back in the next day with the same headache and zero morale.
Some others I work with do absolutely thrive on disruption and can't sit still during downtime!
Depends what mood the controller is in!
A) Even if disruption is not on their “patch”, rail disruption being what it is, it may well spread to other routes as many are not completely isolated. In addition, they may be providing assistance (e.g. logging, liaising with resources, picking up calls, note taking) for their colleague if they have capacity to do so.
I would say that if very little happens and it happens to be 12h shift as an example, the shift can really drag. So some sort of residual / minor level of disruption might be preferred which can take up a few hours and feel like a job well done. Ultimately if it was a good service all day, every day you’d hardly need controllers at all!
B) To an extent yes. It’s a rather specialist job which needs a particular mindset and there lots of railway employees who could never do the role, some of whom think they could and those who have seen it in action and know they couldn’t!
It depends on the factors of any given disruption obviously, and how collaborative the various people you need to liaise with are (other controllers, fleet, drivers, station teams, control management) as to how it’s going to go. This links into my answers in section A - you don’t want an all day job, throwing the schedule into complete chaos, crew and fleet totally displaced and end up passing a complete mess to your relief to try and put back together.
Whilst it may be a role that “you don’t take anything home with you”, if it’s been a particularly bad or high-pressured incident, that can sit with you for hours or replaying the events in your mind and it might be natural for some to be able to disengage immediately.
Control jobs seem to be seen as a “dark art” to many, but ultimately it’s about coordinating and dealing with multiple pieces of information from different sources, trying to deliver a Plan A (and B and C…) and communicating as best possible with all involved in some extremely high-pressure situations. If you’re a railway employee speak to your manager about getting a visit to your company’s ROC / control centre to get an idea of it from those that do it.
Thanks for the feedback. Not a railway employee just an armchair observer.
thesignalman
Member
- Joined
- 9 Jan 2012
- Messages
- 158
I always went to work hoping everything would go smoothly, but of course if it always did then my job served no purpose.
There was no point in anticipating disruption because the number of variations were infinite. You just take things as they come and major issues carry you along on the adrenalin. A few of my colleagues used to find they worked better in such situations standing up - not quite sure why.
John
Fair enough. I know from a casual observation that “Control” decisions can seem perverse - whilst action A might seem self-defeating, it might prevent problems B, C & D at different locations later on. These things are not foreseen by passengers and even many staff don’t understand why.
You often here staff saying something like “control tells us nothing” or “control won’t answer” and whilst there are times where there may be some truth to this, prioritising is a massive part of the role and often the information is there on internal systems but needs to be checked or the issue has just kicked off and it takes time to cascade.
Passenger information is a complex field and has areas for improvement but that being said most industry management know this and are working at ensuring the systems, staffing and culture are improved accordingly. But it’s not easy and of course costs money.
Falcon1200
Established Member
The great thing about Control work (and a reason it comprised the majority of my career) is that every shift is unpredictable, and therefore keeps you on your toes. Having said that, we did not welcome major disruption, as the workload could become unmanageable, and as @Horizon22 says, it was hard to unwind after a bad day. I would add too that days like we are having just now, with high temperature, were not looked forward to, at all, especially for the late shift staff, as we knew all too well how things would go.....
For most railway roles the saying “a boring day is a good day” is very much a truism.
Whilst there is a lot of satisfaction in going home with the knowledge that services have run because of your actions, I have to say I’m not a fan of the shifts where the ‘phone has rung constantly for 12 hours and my food is still in the fridge at shift handover.
BrummieBobby
Member
I think it is important to emphasise that Incident Control and Train Running Control are two separate positions, albeit with some overlap.
At times, there seems to be some friction between signallers and controllers, which I have always found regrettable, as a good incident controller or TRC can really make my job easier as a signaller in times of disruption.
My one recommendation is that controllers should be rules trained; I can point to occasions when I have refused an instruction from Control as to carry out the instruction would be in contravention of the Rule Book, but the controller was not aware of this as they are not rules trained or, in the case of former signallers now working in Control, their rules knowledge was out of date.
At times, there seems to be some friction between signallers and controllers, which I have always found regrettable, as a good incident controller or TRC can really make my job easier as a signaller in times of disruption.
My one recommendation is that controllers should be rules trained; I can point to occasions when I have refused an instruction from Control as to carry out the instruction would be in contravention of the Rule Book, but the controller was not aware of this as they are not rules trained or, in the case of former signallers now working in Control, their rules knowledge was out of date.
Falcon1200
Established Member
An interesting point, and understandable, however not easy to implement; In the early days of Network Rail it was proposed to train a number of Controllers in my location in Rules but it simply proved impossible to release staff for the training required! Having said that, Controllers should have basic Rules knowledge but not to the same level as Signallers, and there should be no issue if Signallers refuse a request from Control if it contravenes the Rules.
Failed Unit
Established Member
I must admit I find this very frustrating as a passenger. As a great northern passenger control frequently makes feels the best course of action to restore the service is skip stopping. However the signaller for whatever reason puts the now fast train behind an all stations stopping service. Result the delay actually increases as passengers at the skip station are inconvenienced for no reason. The signaller may have good reasons for routing the slow service ahead but it does to us trying to get home make great northern look inept.
Falcon1200
Established Member
This is why clear and timely communication between Controller and Signaller is absolutely vital!
Even when it’s timely, a great plan has been made, you look 5 minutes into the plan and the signaller has taken a decision that makes the whole plan pointless! As said, they may have some reasons but controllers generally understand their route, junctions, conflicts and stopping patterns well and have taken a decision with a particular chain of events in mind. Sometimes it’s ARS intervening (or not…), sometimes signaller workload or just inattention to the issue, but rather frustrating sometimes
i worked in Anglia Control from 2010 to 2019 an ideal shift would just involve constantly monitoring the whole area with nothing really disruptive happening, I have had shifts where I have only just taken over when an incident occurs of such seriousness that it lasts all shift, on really bad days we could have serious incidents in more than one place at the same time and time really flew by. I was a Duty Information Manager so had to react to all incidents in the area covered by Greater Anglia including Website and internal disruption messaging, arranging Ticket acceptance and replacement bus arrangements, I also had to deal with local and senior on call management. as you can imagine if there were several incidents at once it could be really hectic. I also stayed on after my booked shift to assist my relief and my junior staff, on more than one occasion booking on at 1300 and staying on throughout the night shift to assist with processing train service amendments both internally and externally to keep staff and customers informed. There were 3 Train Service Managers on duty on all shifts (covering the old West Anglia, Great Eastern and Anglia routes) who dealt with train service alterations in conjunction with Network Rail and Traincrew Managers for their respective areas and I had to be Au Fait with all their decisions so as you can imagine I could be very busy.
Useful to a point, but only the signaller is Safety Critical*.
Control needs a good knowledge of rules to formulate a safe workaround, including degraded modes, but a controller covering a huge area will never have all the local details or box instruction (SBIs) knowledge of the signaller on a workstation.
It’s a balanced relationship but one where the signaller holds all of the safety responsibility.
(*Making NRN emergency calls was control’s only safety critical task.)
Falcon1200
Established Member
In my Control (NR Scotland) the Route Control Manager is responsible for Modified Working during Tokenless Block failure; Also, more generally, Control is the liaison with outside agencies, eg Police and Fire Service, and agrees and arranges safe access to the line for them. We have the Bridge Strike phone number to answer and deal with appropriately, and I was among a number of Controllers trained as Bridge Strike Nominees; Not to attend on the ground but to assess what action could be taken at the few bridges equipped with cameras.
godfreycomplex
Established Member
- Joined
- 23 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 1,751
I was an NR controller for a period and would echo the assessments above, although my position was mostly B. I do remember one shift in a major storm (when I was a trainee) where I had three evacuations going on at once, the phone didn't stop for three hours and I could barely catch my breath let alone think about eating.
However, when I was having a very large glass of a very bad wine when I got home that evening I thought I could do that again tomorrow.
The job of a Controller (and I'm being deliberately vague here as I still work for NR), as in most railway jobs, is very dependent on the wider environment in which it sits, the route, the service, the way things were handled, and how much you can be allowed to help that, etc. Dealing with this was one of the parts of the job I found frustrating.
However, when I was having a very large glass of a very bad wine when I got home that evening I thought I could do that again tomorrow.
The job of a Controller (and I'm being deliberately vague here as I still work for NR), as in most railway jobs, is very dependent on the wider environment in which it sits, the route, the service, the way things were handled, and how much you can be allowed to help that, etc. Dealing with this was one of the parts of the job I found frustrating.
sir_gummerz
Member
Ex station controller, now a guard.
Personally you want a little bit of workload, expecially as a station controller, there is very little to do during normal service. During the early morning and late evenings I had ECS, attachments, detachments to inform dispatchers of, but during the day, if everything was running on time I could go hours between actually doing anything. During heavy disruption it was flat out for hours, which was equally bad. I was ether incredibly board, or incredibly stressed, the only happy times where during minor disruption. You probably dont have to guess as to why I changed jobs.
Agreed. A dead Control with nothing going on makes for a grim shift. I always found that the phone ringing around six times per hour was the optimum amount to keep me sane, as long as nothing too crazy was happening at the other end
I was really surprised to see how many people actually work in a control room, so I think it’s probably a good idea to explain the set up of a control room (note this is only based on my experience, but would imagine other control rooms are similar).
Fleet controllers - assist traincrew when a unit sits down
Fleet planning controller - plan units to a depot for various levels of servicing
Train service controller - run trains fast, arrange diversions / cancellations
Incident controller TOC - leads on operational incidents and stranded trains
Incident controller NR - arranges NR response to incidents
Resource controller - oversees local traincrew management (not line management)
Information controller - updates passenger systems, arranges ticket acceptance and adhoc bus replacement
Train running controller - works with TOCs and signallers to implement service alterations
Social media / help point controllers - as the title says
You also have respective TOC / NR management chains in the building too.
Fleet controllers - assist traincrew when a unit sits down
Fleet planning controller - plan units to a depot for various levels of servicing
Train service controller - run trains fast, arrange diversions / cancellations
Incident controller TOC - leads on operational incidents and stranded trains
Incident controller NR - arranges NR response to incidents
Resource controller - oversees local traincrew management (not line management)
Information controller - updates passenger systems, arranges ticket acceptance and adhoc bus replacement
Train running controller - works with TOCs and signallers to implement service alterations
Social media / help point controllers - as the title says
You also have respective TOC / NR management chains in the building too.
Depends on how big the TOC is really; fleet planning and incident controller roles at many TOCs may not exist and sit with the fleet & service controllers respectively.
This is true but I’m aware they exist at at least 3 major TOCs, however somewhere like cross country will be streamlined in the way you describe.
I just thought it would be useful to give an overview to those that found it interesting.
TheManBehind
Member
- Joined
- 26 Sep 2012
- Messages
- 174
Busiest days were the best days - I wanted the hours to fly by! (need not be said that obviously I wouldn't ever wish a busy day for customers, but in control they were quite exhilarating). Night shifts were the downtime where I worked on projects and systems that caught my fancy. To be honest, I usually recommend control as a career path for anyone with ADHD - the mix of high-pressure, short-deadline work with the downtime of a quiet shift to work on passion projects makes it a superb place to work, particularly with Inattentive types.
godfreycomplex
Established Member
- Joined
- 23 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 1,751
100% agree with that
And one of few jobs where you can be completely inundated and in the shot, then hand it all over to your relief to solve all the problems - Then come back in for your next shift to a completely clear desk. Or the reverse!
That’s an interesting - and useful - insight that perhaps could be mentioned in the jobs and careers section as and when control roles are being discussed.
endofthetunnel
Member
This is a good list of TOC jobs but there’s a whole host more in a control room in a ROC, which is why often things take even longer or get lost in translation-
In the same room and dealing with the same incident as all the TOC people (and often multiple TOCs in one room) would be all the Network Rail staff such as -
Incident Controller (IC) per area, directly talking to signallers or shift managers on the route about the incidents
Senior Incident Controller (SIC) - overseeing the ICs
Train Running Controllers (TRC) - both a passenger and freight desk, liaising with the TOC/FOC controllers and then disseminate the info to signallers
Senior TRC overseeing TRCs
Network Delivery Managers (NDM) - overseeing whole areas of railway and making strategic decisions
Senior NDM overseeing often whole routes and making the big decisions
Plus info coordinators, very short term planners, the delay attribution team and the list goes on…
- Status